Approximately ten to fifteen million people in the United States use daily-wear soft contact lenses. The major problem with the wearing of these lenses is the possibility of corneal infection. This is primarily the result of two factors, the inability of the patient to sterilize the lenses without damaging them, and the fact that a scratch on the cornea, which is extremely susceptible to becoming infected, will not hurt when covered by the comfortable soft contact lens.
Of the three main types of contact lenses, daily-wear hard lenses, daily-wear soft lenses and extended-wear soft lenses, only the daily-wear soft lenses present a major problem of infection. It is the wearers of these lenses that have a problem due to the lack of an adequate means of home sterilization. The present methods of disinfection of soft lenses have inherent problems. The chemical method results in almost all patients becoming allergic to the preservatives in the solutions and, therefore, unable to use the disinfecting method. The heat method requires a long term, often overnight, heating of the lenses in a solution. This requirement for a very demanding disinfection procedure results in poor patient compliance. Heat disinfection also causes damage to the lenses.
Another problem involving lens sterilization is that of sterilizing bandage lenses. A bandage lens is a high water content hydrophilic extended-wear soft contact lens. It is used to protect the cornea in a variety of situations such as protection following corneal surgery, and in various disease processes that prevent normal healing of the corneal epithelium, including poorly healing epithelial defects, corneal injuries and ulcerations.